Play Ball!

Sammy thought Tiger might want to play ball with him:




Or not.......

In other news, there is a contest going on at the SPCA International website; they are doing a drawing for a fancy vacuum cleaner just for pet parents. No purchase required, they just want your contact information so you can get their e-newsletter. I support this organization and have donated several times to their program "Operation Baghdad Pups," which rescues the pets adopted by troops in Iraq and other war zones. The animals are transported to the states and placed with the troops who cared for them. The military channel recently did a documentary about the program. Anyway, check it out! The contest only runs through today, so I should have put this up sooner.

Years of Messes

It took me about 4 years to research and write my dissertation, so for roughly 4 years I have done little in the way of organizing. Even under the best of circumstances, I tend to make piles of stuff round the house, but this past year -- in which I was doing almost nothing but actively writing -- my piles became grand champion and frankly, overwhelming. They have taken over certain portions of the house. Since handing in my document, I've been trying to clear through them a little at a time. This task -- plus looking after Sammy, who is extremely high-maintenance -- takes most my time!
At the risk of embarrassing myself, I am going to share with you my EXTREME messes so you can see what I'm up against. Really, it looks as though we are moving.

The Living Room --


The Dining Room --

A long shot of both rooms together -- you can see my nice den rug is rolled up on the floor here to prevent Sammy from ruining it. There are baby gates on both ends of these rooms to keep dogs OUT!!! You can also see that I never have put away BB's camp trunk and other items, though I did unpack and do wash!



Like Mother, like Daughter: BB's messy table --



BB and I both contributed to this mess on the porch --


You can see that we have out work cut out for us. In the meantime, BB and the dogs have been enjoying our new gas log fireplace:




Happy Friday Everyone!!!

Turkey Lurkey Thursday: A Quiz

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, everyone may need a refresher on correctly identifying turkeys, so we at the Rose Jugglers have composed a simple quiz for your review.

Which one is the REAL Turkey???



(The beautiful wildlife photos were taken by my Mom in her backyard last summer!)

Sammy is NOT a good study buddy!

In fact, Sammy is positively a GOOF-OFF! I think he is trying to distract BB from her homework...

Now it looks like BB has totally abandoned her book -----




I think Sammy may be a bad influence!